The sharp U-turns being carried out these days by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his newbie Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman are overwrought, even for a cynical political system such as Israel's.

Until only a short time ago, Netanyahu continued to cater to his electoral right-wing “base”: He exhibited diplomatic recalcitrance, disqualified the two-state solution and acted more like an inflamed right-wing talk radio person than a prime minister. Liberman did all this too, only at a much higher volume. He even outflanked Netanyahu, announcing that the Gaza Strip needs to be conquered and that senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh should be killed (if Hamas won’t return the bodies of missing Israeli fighters) in addition to making a series of other "recommendations" of this type.

Suddenly, almost overnight, the two of them are singing an entirely different tune. They recognize the Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for negotiations (albeit with reservations), and practice saying the word “peace” again in every possible inflection. Netanyahu broke his own record last week when he begged Tzipi Livni, the head of the Hatnua party and partner of Labor in the Zionist Camp, to quit the Zionist Camp with her four Knesset members and join his government as justice minister. Until a few weeks ago, Netanyahu had tried to convince Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog to enter his government without his archenemy Livni. Suddenly, Netanyahu rediscovered her.

The educated guess is that Netanyahu has two cumulative reasons that pushed him into this change of strategy. The first is the series of investigations that began in May with a recommendation to submit an indictment against his wife, and now continue with investigations against Netanyahu himself. This issue will intensify greatly in the coming weeks and we will expand on this in future articles. The second reason is the diplomatic scare that has gripped Netanyahu, which he has passed on to Liberman.